Posted
by
Unknown Lamer
on Wednesday September 07, 2011 @10:01AM
from the pass-a-copyright-law-rover-good-boy dept.

Debuting on Slashdot, seezer writes with a piece by Rick Falkvinge about a recently release diplomatic cable. From the article: "Among the treasure troves of recently released WikiLeaks cables, we find one whose significance has bypassed Swedish media. In short: every law proposal, every ordinance, and every governmental report hostile to the net, youth, and civil liberties here in Sweden in recent years have been commissioned by the U.S. government and industry interests."
This is from a Pirate Party founder and so might be slightly exaggerated, but there is certainly evidence in the cable that the U.S. exerted quite a bit of influence of Swedish copyright law. The U.S. government appears particularly vexed that the Swedish public doesn't seem to think anything is wrong with copying protected works, and (not unexpectedly) was quite concerned that Pirate Party members might actually be elected.

By "defending copyright" do you mean to include "defending repeated extensions to the term of copyright" and "defending the narrowing of fair use, first sale, and other limitations on the scope of copyright" and "defending copyright even when the owner of copyright in a particular work cannot be determined with reasonable research"?

When Julian Assange was recently accused of sexual assault in Sweden, I maintained that this had "CIA discrediting campaign" written all over it. One of the main responses to this was "But the U.S. government doesn't have any control over Sweden or what they do."

There is a similar case going on just now. An Italian politician have, on an open street in Sweden, lifted his 12 year old son by the hair, the son was fleeing from a restaurant where his father had pounded him repeatedly in the face. One of the owners of the restaurant rushed out and was able to go in between, before the father did something worse. There are lots of witnesses to both incidents, the father/politician have not been judged yet, but he faces time inside a Swedish prison. If he was a Swede, his son would have been placed in protective care, until the father had learned how to behave like a "real" parent (the father will likely be judged to undergo behavioural therapy). Both the Italian politician and Italian media is upset because the Italian politician is punished because he "corrected" his sons behaviour.

Italian media (and likely many Italians) is very upset because of the "injustice" that is done to their countryman. There is two reason for this:1) Cultural differences between Italians and Swedes. In Italy it is socially acceptable to give your offspring, student, et c. physical punishments. In Sweden, physical punishment of any kind is looked upon as barbaric, it deemed as even worse if you do it to a kid, and worse of all, if you do it to your own offspring or someone in your care (like if you are a teacher), compared to if you would hit some random strange kid that annoys you.2) What happened is not reported correct in Italian media. According to Italian media, if they even report that the son was hit, the father only slapped his son with an open hand and grabbed him by the collar. What all witnesses say is that he pounded him with his fist in the face.

This is almost identical to how the Assange-case have been treated by internet media.1) Cultural differences. At least in UK and NZ, Assange would face a similar punishment for the rapes as he would in Sweden (I'm not sure about Australia), the laws in those countries don't differ that much from Swedish laws (but the treatment in UK and NZ during prison time is much worse, so, de facto, the punishment would be harder then in Sweden). In many states of USA it wouldn't be considered rape, but in all states it would still be considered a crime, even if the punishment would be rather weak.2) What Assange did to the girls have been downplayed by many foreign media. Much of the information, spread by internet, is outright lies in favour of Assange.

PS. An interesting detail is that most of the witnesses of the first beating of the son was not ethnic Swedes (it was inside a kebab restaurant), but from countries that is geographically and culturally close to Italy and still most of the witnesses was very chocked by the incident, most Italians would likely not even have noticed what happened.